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Read my review of BAMBI

One of Walt Disney’s masterpieces has arrived on Blu-ray in a gorgeous MPEG-4 AVC 1080p transfer. The restoration has removed all damage that may have plagued the nearly 70 year old film. The picture literally looks like you are watching the planes moving past you in the multiplane camera. The various planes have never had such delineation in a home entertainment release. These restorations elicit a lot of debate on whether they look too good, because when the cels were filmed originally, the artists knew how they would look when put to film and compensated for that and made cheats knowing it. This particular presentation finds a nice balance between its film origins and high-def digital presentations of the source artwork. The only complaint I have is that black level seemed off at times. Otherwise, the picture is nearly flawless. The beautiful forest paintings pop with vibrant greens and browns. There isn’t a hint of any digital distortion or compression anywhere.

The audio is presented in both DTS-HD HR 7.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. As with any film of the era, the transfer is only as good as the source. The distribution of the original sound effects and score across the soundscape in admirable. The rear speakers provide a nice dose of ambience in the forest. During the epic fire, the track shines its best, using the bass effectively. Highs and lows are boxy, but the dialogue is crisp.

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Read my review of GET LOW

Sony’s MPEG-4 AVC 1080p transfer of Aaron Schneider’s folksy tale is about as good as it gets. The detail that is brought out in the picture, while retaining a film look is impressive. From the lines on faces to the depth of the woods everything pops in the crystal clear way that makes own sense depth in the frame. The range of color is captured naturally fitting the film’s rustic tone. Blacks are inky and the few flashes of color really look brilliant.

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack is solid as well. The only real issue is sometimes the clarity of the dialogue is too quiet or bassy. But it was very fleeting. The balance between the music, sound effects and dialogue is nicely done. The film relies on its front speakers mainly, but outdoor scenes with the sounds of the woods and gunshots whizzing from front to back or left to right utilize the soundscape to create ambience.

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Check Out the Trailer

Every neighborhood has their own hermitic legend. As a kid we had Pappy Kratzer. Kids told tales of him firing shotguns off to scare away anyone who got too close to his house. He’d sit on his porch and ridicule kids as they went by about how things were different in his day. But I never knew Mr. Kratzer. Not even his first name. I wish I would have. I’m sure he had a story to tell.

The same can be said of the protagonist in Aaron Schneider’s nostalgic drama. Felix Bush (Robert Duvall, THE ROAD) sports a long straggly gray beard and tattered clothes. He lives in a small cabin in the woods, where kids dare each other to pass the sign warning people not to come onto his land. He rarely comes into town and when he does it becomes all the chatter. The rumors say he killed a man once.

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Buy It Now!

Read my review of KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL

This public domain title arrives in an AVC encoded 1080p edition from Film Chest. It was sourced from a good 35mm print. The restoration process has left the image clean of dirt and damage, while retaining a fairly consistent sharp picture. The black levels are like ink and contrast is balanced well.

The sound comes in Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 options. The non-lossless 5.1 track is not immersive, because the original sound design was in mono. The 2.0 soundtrack is much closer to the original. That said, the dialogue heavy film has all its elements balanced cleanly. The track source is pretty much free of pops or damage and the hiss is not overbearing. The only real noticeable problem would be the highs and lows don’t have the perfect range.

A good way of looking at the quality of this release is to cop are it to a similar release. I recently reviewed Film Chest’s Blu-ray release of Orson Welles’ THE STRANGER. The restoration process equally cleaned up the picture, but left it far softer than this crime tale. The white balance    and gray scale range are much better here too. As for the soundtrack, KCC certainly came from a better source. As I said about that release, this might not be the absolute best you could get, but for the price it’s certainly worth it.

The special features are minimum. There is the theatrical trailer and a restoration demo.

Check Out the Trailer

Phil Karlson made B-movies from the 1940s through the 1970s. He’s probably best known for the Elvis Presley flick KID GALAHAD and 1973’s original WALKING TALL. His 1955 THE PHENIX CITY STORY was like many moralizing message movies of the era, but distinguished itself with its unflinching realistic violence. KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL, a wronged man tale, is credited as inspiring RESERVOIR DOGS.

Joe Rolfe (John Payne, MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) was studying to be an engineer when a gambling debt got him a stint in the pen. Now he’s driving a flower delivery truck to get his life on track. In a streak of bad luck, he gets set up as a patsy in a bank robbery. Without a job and 20 years hanging over his head, he sets out to locate the thieves and get his share anyway.

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Buy It Now!

Read my review of THE STRANGER

Film Chest has taken this Orson Welles public domain title and brought it to Blu-ray from a 35mm print. The result is mixed, but not bad. The restoration of the image is well done, ridding the image from virtually all damage and decay. However, the process has left the picture soft or washed out at times. Bright sunny outdoor scenes suffer the most. The high contrast suits the shadowy scenes best. Black are as dark as Welles’ Nazi-in-hiding character. Details in close-ups during these dark scenes actually show remarkable detail.

There are two soundtracks — Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. The 5.1 track simply relegates Bronislaw Kaper’s score to the back speakers. The 2.0 track represents the original sound design better anyway. Without access to source material, the print used is not the best one could hope for. Pops, cracks and synch issues plague the entire film. Additionally, the high and low range seems compressed.

The disc comes with a DVD version as well. Difference in quality between that and the Blu-ray are certainly noticeable. The special features are very limited — the theatrical trailer and a demo of the restoration.

With public domain titles like this one, it will take a firm like Criterion or Kino to have a more robust transfer, but for now the Film Chest version is worth the reasonable price.

Check Out the Trailer and Clips

So if you’re one of nine superpowered aliens from a destroyed world hiding out on Earth when the creatures that wiped out your kind are in hot pursuit, what do you do? If you’re John Smith in this film, you stop to develop a roll of film with your Earthling girlfriend. You really can’t make this stuff up.

John Smith is played by the up-and-coming hunk Alex Pettyfer (BEASTLY). He is an alien hiding out on Earth with his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant, TV’s JUSTIFIED), who poses as his father. The evil Mogadorians are hunting the nine superpowered aliens in numerical order. The numbering system is never explained. Number 3 has just been killed and John is Number 4.

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Check Out the Trailer

Selected for the National Film Registry in 1989, this drama marked the film time an American-American was hired to direct a major studio production. Renaissance man Gordon Parks helmed the film, based on his screenplay adapted from his novel. It’s harder to think of another film under such a singular authorship. The result is a complex coming-of-age tale that defies expectations and resonates with emotional truth.

The story throws us into a tornado. Black teenager Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson, PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW) is lost in the storm. He ends up half delirious in a shack where the prostitute Big Mabel (Carol Lamond, BLACK GIRL) “pops his cherry.” In talking with his friends about it later, he doesn’t seem to have wanted anything to do with it. He’s a sensitive young man who develops a crush on the new girl in town Arcella Jefferson (Mira Waters, THE GREATEST). His family works for the town judge Cavanaugh (Russell Thorson, HANG ‘EM HIGH), whose progressive attitudes have rubbed off on his son Chauncey (Zooey Hall, I DISMEMBER MAMA)… somewhat. The young man likes ruffling feathers more than righting social wrongs.

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Buy It Now!

Read my review of UNSTOPPABLE

This is one first rate Blu-ray. The MPEG-4 AVC 1080p picture captures Tony Scott’s unique visual style wonderfully. The deeply saturated colors just pop. The red of the runaway train. The blue of the “good” locomotive. The yellow of Will’s jacket. The inky blacks that dominated the highly contrasted image. Details are rich in closeups where pores stand out to wide shots where the fall foliage is defined even when the camera is racing by. Grain levels are not consistent, but I chalked that up to the varying cameras used. To find anything like aliasing or shaky edge definition, one has to be looking for it.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is one to show off the sound system with. The LFE track shakes the floor, literally, as the trains roar by. The directionality is perfect as trains, helicopters and trucks race across the entire entire soundscape. In the midst of the chaos, the dialogue is always crisp. There is a reason this film was nominated for an Oscar for Sound Editing.

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The Stranger

Following five years after his groundbreaking CITIZEN KANE, this thriller was Orson Welles only theatrical hit. He was inspired to make the film after seeing documentary footage of the liberation of the concentration camps. He believed reforms in post-War Germany were pointless, because the “putrefaction of the soul” that was Nazi ideology was just waiting to fuel another fire.

In the film, Welles plays Nazi-in-hiding Franz Kindler. The young architect of genocide has become a professor in America under the name of Prof. Charles Rankin. His cover is perfect; he’s about to marry Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young, THE BISHOP’S WIFE), the daughter of Judge Adam Longstreet (Philip Merivale, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE). But he’s about to fall into a trap set by Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson, DOUBLE INDEMNITY), an officer of the United Nations War Crimes Commission. He has let free Kindler’s confident Konrad Meinike (Konstantin Shayne, VERTIGO), who leads him right to Kindler.

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